While Momen and Tittlin were getting sidetracked in the library with Beiydark, I was down the hall keeping watch on the washroom where I’d found the body. After a few minutes without movement, I poked my head around the corner and shouted to ask whether anyone was actually coming. That got them moving.
Beiydark came with them. She saw the acid-smeared walls and winced, then asked whether this was “typical for orc cuisine.” I let that one go. Momen wiped off the last of the acid from my more hard-to-reach spots while we let her take a look at the body. She identified the victim quickly: Vision Seeker Narivaris - a noble and prominent member of the clergy. The previous victim had been a townsperson. This one was somebody the order clearly cared about.
The acid cloud had destroyed most of what would normally give a clean read of the scene. What Momen did find was powdered diamond on the back of the door - material component for a Glyph of Warding. So the trap was magical. Someone had stored an Acid Cloud in the doorframe and left it waiting. According to Momen, the spell wasn’t particularly advanced - third level, explosive rune - but it wasn’t something a layperson could set up either. It helped that I’d seen a bright green flash when the door came down. Momen had a working theory before we’d even finished checking me over for burns.
I remembered seeing Narivaris at the ceremony that morning. I recognized the clothes on the corpse. That gave us a time window: somewhere between the ceremony ending around 9:30 and when I found the body around 10:15. Momen confirmed no rigor mortis, so we were looking at a very recent death - somewhere inside that forty-five minute stretch.
We went to Narivaris’s room to see what else we could learn. The place was practically a wine cellar with a bed in it - bottles and a barrel taking up most of the available surface space, with cigars, food, sheet music, a gramophone, and a violin tucked in one corner. A book of hymns lay open on the bed. Whatever his faults, he’d loved music. The maid told us that Brother Onus had stopped by after the ceremony to retrieve a book he’d lent Narivaris.
Onus wasn’t hard to find. He produced the book without hesitation - an old personal hymn collection from his hometown, lent to Narivaris out of a mutual interest in folk music. He didn’t look nervous and had no obvious reason to lie. Momen agreed it didn’t lead anywhere.
Shortly after, Lady Drusilia made an announcement over the air: the temple was being sealed, the front entrance was off-limits, and everyone should stay with at least one other person. Two large statues with crescent moons for heads started trundling down the hallways - the temple’s defense golems. Just after the announcement, Lathaeril poked his head out of his room to see what the fuss was about, then quickly retreated. At least he had a clear alibi.
While still in the library, I showed the calling card to Professor Lassagaseer. He recognized it immediately — not just as thieves’ cant, but the specific card. He’d seen the same design left at a string of assassinations in Torveldus, all targeting people close to the queen. The Black Dagger was a professional killer for hire, and someone had sent him here. The most likely candidate was Aemmin: he needed what the senior clergy at this temple could provide for his horcrux ritual, and hiring an assassin to clear the way — and prime the bodies — fit the pattern exactly.
I asked Beiydark who else was worth checking on - someone with theological expertise who might be a tempting target. She pointed me toward the corridor of nobles: second door on the left.
The man who answered was Omen Teller Elyon Tremer, and he made it obvious within about thirty seconds that he wasn’t impressed with me. He noted that a half-orc and a dwarf turning up in an elven sanctuary seemed “highly suspect.” I thanked him for his concern and didn’t argue. He was doing fine needlework at his desk - embroidery on a large cloth, which he described as fashion design rather than tailoring. He seemed deeply frustrated that nobody at the temple had been willing or able to give him an intellectual conversation, and that Narivaris had fallen short of his expectations as a scholarly companion.
I showed him the calling card as well, to see if he could tell us more. He confirmed it was written in Common but nonsensical — thieves’ cant, though not a dialect he personally recognized. While finding some shaky conversational footing, he mentioned a book in the library - something about lichdom and theology, clearly useful for the original purpose of us being here - and offered to show me where it was when he noticed my interest. When we got there, he discovered that the dust marks he’d left to track a specific volume had been cleaned away - Momen had dusted the entire library earlier. We didn’t find the book, but at least we have some possible titles to search for now.
Meanwhile, Momen and Professor Lassagaseer had gone back to examine the body more thoroughly. Lassagaseer lifted the clothing and found necromantic sigils carved into the skin. Between the two of them, they worked out what was happening: the body was being used as an energy source for a horcrux. The divine power in Narivaris - a senior member of the clergy - was being corrupted and drawn out as necromantic fuel. The ritual was about halfway complete.
The head was a separate matter. Given what the body was being used for, the working theory was that the missing heads weren’t just desecration - they were components. Aemmin had been worried about the mental deterioration that comes with becoming a lich, and it looked like he’d decided to address that by stealing the mental fortitude of the monks here. Taking their heads prevented resurrection, prevented Speak with Dead, and gave him what he needed all at once.
Momen also found a trap layered into the ritual - a mechanism on the body with runes suppressing it, specifically designed so that casting Dispel Magic would detonate it. An anti-mage trap. We left it alone.
Tittlin had spent the hour attuning to the crystal ball. Once ready, he scryed using the calling card as a link to the Black Dagger. The scrying sensor appeared somewhere in the library. Tittlin went in, declared the room closed, and methodically collected a hair sample from everyone present - Beiydark, Onus, Durlan, the guards, even the one who was asleep. Anyone who gave hair was accounted for. He then walked each person out of the sensor’s ten-foot range one at a time. The sensor didn’t follow any of them.
Which meant someone in that room wasn’t one of the people they appeared to be. After doing a brief test, we determined that all people visible in the room were clear - the sensor wasn’t for any of them. Beiydark silently instructed the moon guard, which walked over to the sensor and smashed the ground, revealing none other than The Black Dagger.
Tittlin handed me the crystal ball for safekeeping right as the figure made his move. The Black Dagger threw down a bag of powder - Dust of Sneezing and Choking - and the room filled. He disengaged and went for the door.
Beiydark didn’t hesitate. She pulled out a small figurine, threw it on the ground, and summoned a Tyrannosaurus Rex. It bit down on the Black Dagger, then the tail connected for a huge hit. By the time I got my greatsword out, he was badly wounded but still on his feet. I stepped in and finished it.
“That was anticlimactic,” Beiydark said, looking down at the body.
She wasn’t wrong. But we’ve still got an active horcrux ritual working on a corpse in the washroom, a second head missing somewhere in the temple, Aemmin working toward lichdom somewhere in Torveldus, and a dragon plague spreading through the kingdom. The Black Dagger is dead. We’ll take the win and figure out the rest.